


Overlap

by aethernity



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gen, Multiple Selves, Personal Growth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aethernity/pseuds/aethernity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yifan thinks about Kris, Kevin and Jiaheng, and how they all fall into place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overlap

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Standing Still](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/28144) by underthepines. 



> Written for the 2013 cycle of kpop_ficmix!

Where Kris ends, Kevin and Jiaheng begin. Sometimes, Yifan isn't sure where that is.

Yifan likes things in order, likes knowing the limits and possibilities, and he doesn't like being unsure of anything at all. The different sides of him are meant for different people in his life - Kris for the fans (and to some extent, the members), Kevin for his friends, and Jiaheng for family. He's never sure how to feel when a fan he barely knows calls him Jiaheng, because the only people who call him that are uncles and aunts with heavy Chinese accents; or when his friends call him Kris as a joke, because the only people who call him Kris are the ones with whom he is unsure if he will ever be able to connect with on a personal level. Most of all, it confuses him, because sometimes even he isn't sure which side of him he's supposed to show, or even which one he currently is.

He tries his best to keep them apart, because then he knows exactly who he is at a certain point in time, but it is never easy. When the other members say or do stupid things on national television again, he almost laughs, but stops. He knows that the laugh will not be the charismatic chuckle Kris has been practising for months - months alone will never be enough to change eighteen-year-old habits. Kris dislikes Jiaheng’s snorts of laughter, and the company agrees. _Not good for your image,_ , his manager informs him curtly, so Yifan works harder than ever to perfect Kris’ mannerisms and invents little quirks that the fans begin to know Kris for. It works - they love Kris.

Jiaheng still laughs that way when talking to his parents and cousins. Around family, Kris takes a step back, and for that period of time he is Jiaheng again - in his own house, his image doesn’t matter. He can snort as loudly as he likes when his uncle tells a bad joke, slouch over while watching his cousins battle it out in Street Fighter, and say whatever he likes without worrying about finding those words transcribed, highlighted in bold and pasted all over the Internet five minutes later.

Keeping Kevin, Jiaheng and Kris apart is never easy, and at times, Yifan finds himself rushing to keep up.

It's not very difficult to tell sometimes - the moment the stage lights come on, he is Kris, the rapper and dancer and leader (perhaps pushover - Kris doesn't mind). Offstage, though, it's Kevin who collapses into a sofa, thoroughly drained from consecutive all-nighters and endless schedules. The rest of the night passes in a blur of Kris, Kevin, and Jiaheng. It's Kris who orders everyone off the floor (or hauls a half-asleep Jongdae off the sofa) and into the van; it's Kevin who gives the other members pats on the back and a quick "you did well". It's Kris who waves to the fans, grinning and blowing flying kisses and getting smacked upside the head by a playful Luhan; and it's Jiaheng who stares out the window as they drive through the streets of Seoul, wondering if his mother is well.

Somewhere in between the endless practice sessions leading up to their debut and their repackage album, Yifan picks up smoking. It helps him think, helps him relax, and on nights where he can't sleep, it's the only thing he can think of doing. It's somewhat comforting, knowing that it's something only Yifan does - Jiaheng never liked smoking, Kevin's heard from friends how hard it is to quit, and Kris would rather be run over by a bus than be photographed with a cigarette in hand. It helps him think, because then he's not Kris or Kevin or Jiaheng, just Yifan.

Yifan very much prefers keeping Kevin apart from Jiaheng, and Jiaheng apart from Kris. It is never easy, and sometimes, he slips. When the MCs ask Kris to say something to his family, Kris says what he was trained to - the usual 'thank you for supporting me’, the expected ‘I hope you're doing well', always remembering to smile throughout and end off with a cheerful 'I love you guys!' Kris is the picture of commercial calmness, but it's Jiaheng who tears up at the line 'I really miss you'. He's gone in the blink of an eye, and Kris continues talking as though nothing had happened.

Some nights are much tougher than others. Some nights, when fatigue and frustration and homesickness set in, he is less of Kris and more of Kevin, more of Jiaheng, the lump under the blankets that wishes he was back home in Vancouver or in his grandparents' home in Guangzhou - anywhere except a cramped apartment with six other people, miles away from any semblance he can call home. On the few nights when a cigarette or two does nothing to help Yifan, or a quick Skype call to his best friend still leaves Kevin upset and worried, Jiaheng just sits in a corner sobbing quietly. On nights like these, Jiaheng misses his mother's voice and his father's jokes, but even if a phone call can solve that, he never calls home on these nights. The last time he did, his mother almost booked him a ticket for the next flight back to Canada.

Luhan walks in one day when Jiaheng is sitting in the corner of the room, curled up a little ball and sniffling softly. Luhan doesn't say anything - he steps out of the room and returns a moment later, placing a box of tissues on the floor. He leaves the room again, shutting the door behind him. Jiaheng can hear him say to the other members "Kris isn't feeling well, so he's resting. Let's go out for dinner." Half an hour of peace and quiet later, Jiaheng is gone, and Yifan sits in the living room watching The King Of Dramas, a tub of ice-cream in hand. That same night, Yifan finds a pack of haw flakes on his bed. He knows they're difficult to get hold of in Korea, and he also knows that Luhan's treasure trove of Chinese snacks is now one pack of haw flakes short.

It's never easy to find the line that divides him in his mind - Kris, Kevin, and Jiaheng overlap and cross each other's paths so often that Yifan never knows where one ends and another begins. Kris is the only child suddenly given eleven siblings to take care of, the brother and friend and leader; Kevin is the joker, the one who draws suspicious things on his friends' worksheets or notebooks, and then makes a tongue-in-cheek remark about his artistic ability; Jiaheng is the boy who loves performing and being on stage, the child whose mother poured all her time and effort into in the hopes that her son would turn out to be a child she could be proud of. ( _hoping for your child to be like a majestic dragon, soaring towards the skies_ , his aunt had explained as he copied the four characters of the idiom over and over again. Yifan still finds the coincidence amusing.)

He's half a world away from Canada now. Along the way, all of them change. Jiaheng doesn't cave under pressure so often, and he learns things he'd never experienced as an only child; Kevin learns to open up and be friendly to even complete strangers, and learns to commandeer the stage. Kris comes into existence that way - the joker who draws a blob on four legs and claims it is a giraffe (to the horror and amusement of the fans), the one who leads EXO in the call of 'we are one!', and Kris is the leader who stands in the shower with Zitao at two in the morning because Zitao thinks he saw a ghost.

Kris, Kevin, and Jiaheng overlap, and sometimes Yifan isn't very sure where one ends and the other begins. It confuses him, but he knows that in the end, he can never define them as well as he’d really like to. Kris is the point where Jiaheng and Kevin converge, and yet he is too different to be just Kevin and Jiaheng. It’s Kris that the audience sees, Jiaheng that his family sees, and Kevin that his friends see - as for where they overlap, only Yifan knows.


End file.
